Was your trade or college degree at all related to what you do today?
IB’s July 2009 issue asked that question of a sample of the ER members, and we are adding more answers from people who are well known in the Greater Madison business community. We ask them how they got their own starts.
John Biondi
President, C5-6 Technologies
John Biondi has a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, but he has never worked in journalism. Given the financial state of newspapers today, that’s probably a good thing, and he has been able to leverage that training during his business career. Biondi, president of C5-6 Technologies, an enzyme-producing spin off of Lucigen, went on to earn an MBA from Georgia State University, a degree he earned while serving as a business manager. He’s now with a company that is playing a role in the green energy revolution — its products help convert agricultural and forestry feedstocks into biofuels — and while the MBA has helped him earn positions in senior management, the journalism degree has influenced his ability to communicate. That comes in handy when your businesses are raising venture capital and you write business plans that have raised nearly $50 million in private equity. The journalism degree also is vital in an era where “it is good to constantly reinvent and update one’s self,” Biondi noted.
Jack Cotton
CEO, Suby, Von Haden & Associates
Jack Cotton of Suby, Von Haden & Associates knows his BBA in accounting from UW-Eau Claire was comprehensive, but not quite comprehensive enough to help with managing people. As CEO of the Madison-based CPA firm, he manages more than accounts receivables these days, but people-management skills weren’t addressed while his class schedule was loaded with business and accounting courses. “That’s been the part where you grow the most through experience,” he noted. “For me, working with people and taking continuing education brought the management and interpersonal skills that you need to use when you move from a technical accountant staff person into a management or supervisory position, and to a principal or partner in a firm.” His profession demands continuous improvement — 120 hours worth of new technical and management training over a three-year period. “My education did not stop when I got my degree and passed the CPA exam,” Cotton said. “The way I look at it, it had only just begun.”
Darren Kittleson
CEO, Keller Williams Realty
Darren Kittleson understands that collegiate pursuits can lead one in vastly different directions. Kittleson, CEO of Keller Williams Realty-Dane County, attended the UW College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, double majoring in agricultural journalism and dairy science. He did not finish the degree program before starting his professional career, and he concedes that his collegiate interests might seem like a huge departure from what he’s now doing in residential real estate, but those experiences helped shape him. Kittleson was a member of the UW Dairy Judging Team, and one part of each competition was to provide oral reasons for placing a class of dairy cattle in the order he chose. He also was involved in Future Farmers of America, serving as president and vice president. He developed public speaking skills, more confidence in his decision-making, and the ability to relate to people. “The college experience is a time of personal growth,” he said. “It helps you find what you might naturally excel at, and then it’s up to you to narrow that focus and build a great life for yourself and your family.”
Jim Mohrbacher
Business Development Manager, MGE
At one time, Jim Mohrbacher was the guy that walked up to people and said, “I’m from the government, and I”m here to help.” It was offered and accepted with more sincerity back then, especially after Mohrbacher earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from UW-Parkside, and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from UW-Milwaukee.
A career that started with hands-on work for the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission and the Will County (Illinois) Regional Planning Commission has transitioned to the private sector, where Mohrbacher serves as the business development manager for Madison Gas & Electric. Today, he offers a helping hand by putting together the Dane County High-Tech Directory, where his self-professed persistence and stubbornness comes in handy when gathering information in a down economy.
Mainly, though, he serves as a business resource. Said Mohrbacher: “I found out early on that I was more in tune with a people profession than worrying about how to put a man on the moon.”
Martin Ochs
President, AM Mailing Services
When it comes to a person’s college years, Martin Ochs believes in solidarity, not in wasting time with dead-end history degrees. “I’m a big advocate of getting degrees in areas that are solid — engineering, accounting, business, and architecture,” said Ochs, president of AM Mailing Services. A native of Peshtigo, Ochs offered a solid figure (100%) when asked to measure the extent to which his business and economics degrees apply to what he does now in print and mail. While he also has earned degrees in political science and public administration from UW-Stevens Point, it was his emphasis on economics that gave him a fundamental understanding of business, without which he would not have made the transition to his current emphasis on print and mail. “I haven’t really jumped any fields,” he noted. “I’ve kind of evolved into them.” But in a statement that might offend graduates of the “School of Hard Knocks,” he opines: “You almost can’t run a business today without a basic understanding of economics.”
Melanie Ramey
CEO, HOPE
Melanie Ramey can literally give you the third degree about her prestigious educational background. Make that the fourth degree, if you throw the Juris Doctor in law from St. Louis University in with the bachelor’s degrees in history and sociology from the former Radcliffe College, and the master’s degree in social work from Washington University.
Ramey, CEO of the Madison-based HOPE (Hospice Organization and Palliative Experts) of Wisconsin, a membership organization that represents the licensed hospices of Wisconsin, said her diverse educational background has prepared her for just about anything she has wanted to do, or may still want to do. That includes her current position with HOPE of Wisconsin, where she uses her expertise in planning and decision-making, and where she thinks of herself as a “walking system.”
There is “a lot of value in having as much preparation in a variety of areas as possible,” notes Ramey, a native of Van Buren, Arkansas. “It will all be useful in managing the changing world we live in.”
Marie Stanton
Partner & Managing Attorney, Hurley, Burish & Stanton
To say that attorney Marie Stanton is psyched about the law doesn’t quite capture it. Stanton, a partner and managing attorney for the Hurley, Burish & Stanton law firm, graduated from the University of Dayton in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and went on to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, where she earned a law degree in 1975. While law school taught her the technical skills to practice, her undergraduate degree in psychology pointed her in a career direction that would combine a strong interest in speaking, writing, and face-to-face contact. Psychology ignited Stanton’s curiosity into what makes people tick, and her law career put her in the larger “classroom” of watching people as they face struggles. “All together, it framed the course of when and why it makes sense to provide service to others,” said Stanton. “It tells me that relationships are everything, and trust and follow-through matter most.”
Sandra Torkildson
Co-Founder, A Room of One’s Own
It was education by extension that convinced Sandra Torkildson to co-found A Room of One’s Own Feminist Bookstore. In 1967, she started college as one of the few female students in civil engineering at the UW, and her male counterparts welcomed her with taunts like, “What are you going to design, ovens?” After a couple of years, Torkildson decided to pursue a bachelor’s degree in secondary education, but it was her exposure to feminist thinkers that led her to open a bookstore. The women’s movement was under way, and she was exposed to a teacher who had her university extension class read Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own. At that time, there was no women’s studies program, but there were enlightening classes offered through the university extension. Some were taught by women who had PhDs but could not get professorships — such as feminists Katherine Clarenbach and Ruth Bleier — and they encouraged Torkildson to open the bookstore. “It’s not only my degree but the experience I had in college that’s the reason this bookstore is here.”
Jenifer Winiger
Publisher, Madison Magazine
When Jenifer Winiger, publisher of Madison Magazine, enrolled at UW-Whitewater in the late ’60s, women were still being steered into teaching or nursing. She believes the women’s movement has been liberating both to women who no longer are placed in career straight-jackets, and to the men on her staff that have a passion for art. So while Winiger is happy to have a teaching degree, it hardly applies to what she does now. Like many women who came of age in the ’60s, hers was a gradual evolution from what she was trained for to what she became. For Winiger, the journey from teaching art to writing and publishing involved on-the-job training, and her artistic skills were part of a creative mix applied in both advertising and publishing. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that women once were told they need not apply for certain positions, but that’s what Winiger and others faced. “It’s been a wonderful trip,” she said, to see things change so much.”
